Saint Patrick's Day parade--New York City 6 17 - 1958

Editor: So this is Robert Frank's "Saint Patrick's Day Parade – New York City 6," from 1958, a gelatin silver print presented as the full negative strip. It feels very raw and documentary-like to me, not particularly celebratory given the occasion. What stands out to you about this piece? Curator: Immediately, the unedited film strip grabs my attention. Frank isn't offering a polished narrative; it's a sequence, a memory unfolding. Think about the Saint Patrick's Day parade, and what symbols come to mind. Editor: Shamrocks, maybe? Green clothing? Irish flags? Curator: Precisely. Where do we see those vibrant cultural markers in this strip? He focuses instead on faces, lines, urban architecture. It suggests an undercurrent – a question mark about identity and belonging in post-war America. Look closely at the people he selects. Editor: I notice that there are mostly men here, although in some of the shots you can see groups of people, families I would imagine... Are you saying that these are also specific types of people that he focused his lens on? Curator: Indeed. Frank challenges the familiar tropes linked with this immigrant cultural expression, to make a subtle social observation. It may not only concern Irish immigrants, but broader questions of American identity and cultural memory. The "parade" turns into a meditation on social structures and unspoken tensions. The parade represents social gathering. A question worth thinking about: how many participants or onlookers look to one another to communicate something? Do we see faces filled with warmth or expressions that give something else away? Editor: That's fascinating. So the photograph challenges our expectations of the event and makes us look closer at who is participating and what might be underneath the surface. I hadn’t considered that the film strip format itself adds another layer to this. Curator: Exactly! It leaves us pondering what collective identity truly signifies when rendered through a lens that seeks to reveal rather than merely record. It compels the viewer to ask: Whose story is being told?